


Of Hearts Breaking and Thunderstorms

by kakaiescheck



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Angst, Breakup, F/M, Storms, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:28:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25130905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kakaiescheck/pseuds/kakaiescheck
Summary: A cloudy day in Malibu reflected Piper's exact feelings about what she knew she had to do. It didn't mean it hurt any less to turn this date into... a breakup.
Relationships: Jason Grace & Piper McLean, Jason Grace/Piper McLean
Comments: 6
Kudos: 20





	Of Hearts Breaking and Thunderstorms

**Author's Note:**

> Rereading The Burning Mazes makes me cry my eyes out and have all the feels. I wish we could've seen their breakup scene, but alas, I had to write it. Enjoy?

It wasn’t a typical Californian day. Gray clouds covered the sky, hovering above the sea and turning it just as gray. The wind was chilly, making it feel like it was less than 65o out and forcing Piper to actually wear a hoodie. It might rain soon. The sand was lifeless.

Definitely, December wasn’t a postcard month in Malibu.

Still, Jason had bought them both ice-cream, which they now enjoyed on the beach. Well. _Enjoyed_ was a bit of a strong word for Piper, since she felt like her head might explode at any minute from her turmoil of thoughts and doubts.

“I’ve a question for you.”

Coming from your boyfriend, that sentence was enough to set anyone into red alert mode; although, she debated, would that be such a bad thing?

“D’you remember that place I told you about?” Jason went on, animatedly. “In New Rome? With the brownies?”

“Yeah.” Her voice sounded far away. She wondered if he noticed how distracted she was.

“Well,” she caught his smile with the corner of her eyes, “one block over there’s this really nice restaurant that serves the best Italian food I’ve ever had – and we’ve _been_ to Italy, even though we didn’t really enjoy the local cuisine. Anyway. I was thinking…”

The way his voice trailed off had Piper finally turning to look at him. She noted the slight blush on his cheeks and the way he was fiddling with his spoon, swirling the final pieces of his chocolate ice-cream. She noted how nervous he’d gotten. Then she remembered what day was approaching and cursed internally.

“It’s not, like, one of those super expensive Italian places where people wear suits and stuff, don’t worry,” he quickly explained, mistaking the meaning of her panicking face. “But it’s nice. I thought we could do something different. You know, for our anniversary.”

There it was. The word she didn’t want to hear.

It was ridiculous. She had dreamed about the time she would reach her first anniversary with Jason. She would plan something nice for them, something other than getting ice-cream from the street parlor or popcorn and a movie at her place. She would be over the moon.

She wasn’t, though. She wanted to ignore it completely. As it had gotten closer, she had dared to hope that Jason would be a stereotypical boyfriend who forgot anniversaries, but he wasn’t like that. He was… excited. He was trying to make plans.

Gods, how was she going to do this?

“Pipes?”

She turned to him sharply, noticing she had been staring at the ocean again and not answering him. Her ice-cream was finished, the empty cup next to her on the sand, so she busied her hands with the grains underneath them.

“Do you wanna do something else?” Jason offered. “It’ll be over break, so we can do whatever. If you don’t wanna go all the way to camp, we–”

“No!” Piper cut in. “That’s not…” _That’s not the problem_.

“It’s no trouble. I can get Tempest to take us. He’s probably hanging out close-by, with the weather like this. Or we can stay in, if you want? I could try to cook you dinner again.”

The image of Jason with an apron full of tomato sauce, holding a spoon over the stove while freaking out about water spilling from the pasta pan, nervous smiles and apologies for making a mess, filled her mind. He had been trying to cheer her up after another failed search for Leo. The meal had actually turned out alright, but he had freaked out during the preparation and refused any help. It had been adorable.

“… or something else?”

Poor thing, he looked so lost. She couldn’t do this to him.

“No! I – I just – I can’t!”

The effect of her outburst was instantaneous. What was left of Jason’s nervous smile melted away completely, as if his whole body sagged. At the same time, though, she could see him tensing up, and it physically hurt her. The sky seemed to darken.

“I’m sorry,” she buried her face in her hands and tried to put her thoughts in order so she could talk to him. She repeated, “I can’t.”

They were silent for a few moments, and then Jason said, in a careful, controlled voice she thought her would never use with her again, “Can’t what?”

“Do this to you.”

Piper heard him sigh and put his ice-cream cup down on the sand. When she finally got up the courage to look up, he was the one staring out at the ocean, eyes far away and face set. She knew that look and she didn’t like being the one to cause it.

“Before you say anything,” she started, “you didn’t do anything.”

He grimaced. “Was that the problem?”

“ _No_.”

“Then what is?” He looked at her, those electric blue eyes piercing into her soul. You’ve been weird for weeks. Is it about Leo? Because you know you can talk to me. We’re going through this together.”

“It’s not about Leo.”

“Then what?”

Piper wanted to give him an honest answer, because he deserved at least that from her. He knew what she was doing right now. He knew where she was going with the conversation, and he was obviously hurt. She needed to make sure he understood her reasons if he was ever going to forgive for this. And she desperately needed him to forgive her.

She shrugged, lost. “What are we doing?”

With a sarcastic tilt of his head, Jason glanced down. “We _were_ eating ice-cream and enjoying this cloudy day on the beach.”

“No, I mean…” She sighed, frustrated, and hugged her legs to her chest. “With us. What’re we doing?”

“Dating, Pipes. Because we love each other.”

“Because Hera told us we do?”

They had talked about this before and she knew where Jason stood, which is why it was no surprise that his face closed off and he turned away. “We had a deal.”

Right. The deal he’d made the night the Romans had left Camp Half-Blood and he’d sneaked them up to his cabin’s roof. He had kissed her and said that they would be rewriting their story from then on – no Mist memories, no amnesia. A fresh start.

Except they couldn’t have a fresh start.

“I wish it was that simple,” Piper said, feeling her eyes getting wetter. “I wish I could just… forget those memories of us she planted in my brain. But I can’t! I can’t just… _ignore_ the fact that she – and my mom – just looked at us and thought we’d make a good couple, and then they just pushed us together!”

“Nobody _made_ me be with you.”

“You can’t know that. You can’t!” she added when he gave her a look. “We can’t erase our memories of all that manipulation and start fresh. It’s a fact – from the moment we met, we’ve had preconceived ideas that we should be together. We never had an objective look on things!”

Jason closed his eyes behind his glasses and Piper’s heart squeezed hard in her rib cage.

“I never did anything I didn’t mean. If I say I love you–”

“I know that. I know you.”

“Then what, you think I don’t know what I’m feeling?”

“I don’t know myself!” she finally burst out, the backs of her eyes burning. “This last year was pretty crazy, play? And I know how hard it was for you, to miss a chunk of your life and wake up with amnesia on the other side of the country. But you’ve known your whole life that you’re a demigod. You’ve trained for this since you were a literal baby. I didn’t have the luxury of having time to get used to this.”

Jason was watching her with careful eyes. She still had so much to say and explain, but her head was a mess and her words betrayed her, especially if she met his hypnotizing gaze for too long; _gods_ , why did she have to be so in love with him? She couldn’t stop now – _finish what you started, McLean_.

“One moment I was on a bus trip with my boyfriend and my best friend, the next I was falling down the Grand Canyon and there was this huge prophecy on my shoulders. My recollections of the past few months were apparently a lie. And throughout all of that, I was only sure of two things: Leo was my best friend and I liked you. That’s it. That was all I knew.

“Now the prophecy’s over, and Leo’s gone, and I just…” she shrugged, hopelessly. “I was just – I was thrown into this world and I had to readjust my image of myself. But the way it readjusted… I mean, even before we started dating for real, I was with in a way. I don’t know how to be me without being with you, and I don’t like that.”

Piper loved him, she did, and he deserved all the praise he got. But she was not – repeat, _not_ – going to be defined as Jason Grace’s girlfriend. Maybe someday… when her head was on straight and she was sure of herself… she wouldn’t mind standing next to him. Now, though…

“I don’t know who I am either, you know,” Jason said like an off-comment, but Piper felt the bite nonetheless. “Seeing both camps and wanting to belong in both. I was raised a Roman – I wasn’t supposed to be tempted to leave some of it behind.”

“That’s different.”

He raised his eyebrows at her.

“I also have that,” Piper continued. “I’m half Greek goddess and half… what? Because, for the Cherokee, your heritage comes from your mother, so what am I, really? This whole gods business is messed up – I think all half-bloods go through at least one identity crisis. I…” she searched for the right words. “I can’t be defined by a person.”

“Did someone say something to you?” Jason turned his body a bit more to her. “Is that what triggered this? By the gods, Piper, you’re _not_ defined by your relationship with me. Nobody in their right mind would be dumb enough to even think such a–”

“ _I_ am! _I’m_ the dumb person!” The revelation seemed to strike Jason speechless for a moment. “It’s me, okay? I realized that I’ve been defining myself like that ever since I entered this world. Who am I if I’m not in love with you? If I’m not Leo’s best friend? If I’m not that girl who uses her powers to steal things? I don’t know the answer! And I can’t figure it out if I’m still with you!”

Even though Piper was pretty sure that Jason had picked up on where the conversation was going from the start, it apparently didn’t soften the blow. She felt it too, saying it out loud, like a cold claw closing around her heart. The clouds above closed in, nearly turning the day into night and the wind picked up. A storm was definitely on its way.

Jason blinked a couple of times and turned to the ocean. She couldn’t read his expression – he was wearing his mask of indifference he’d perfected over the years at Camp Jupiter. At last, he said, “Okay.”

“I just need some perspective.”

“Okay.”

It wasn’t okay. Piper had to remind herself why she had to do this in the first place, because all she wanted to do was throw herself at him and be held in his arms while he kissed her over and over and over.

When the silence felt too suffocating, she said, “I know it’s not fair to ask, but you’re my best friend too. I don’t think I can lose you. Not after Leo.”

“Okay.”

There was no emotion in his voice and it made her want to scream at him. Actually, she wanted _him_ to scream at _her_. Or something. She wanted a reaction; anything to show her how he was feeling. It was a done deal now, though – Jason had closed himself off and nothing was going to pry him open at that moment.

“I guess I’ll just…” his voice cracked and he cleared his throat, moving to grab his forgotten ice-cream cup. He kept his head down, not meeting her eyes. “I’ll give you your space, then.”

“Jason…” But he was already getting up and leaving.

Piper knew it was going to hurt, as much as she knew she had to do it. However, actually watching him physically walk away from her broke something in her chest and a sob escaped her lips. Suddenly, the weather was fitting – cloudy, windy, cold. And if thunder and lightning rumbled above and followed his retreating figure… well, she just knew she would never enjoy a thunderstorm quite the same way ever again.


End file.
